


Draw A Monster

by wordbending



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Fanart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 12:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21036224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: “Draw a monster!”The goat boy - Asriel - smiles at me, an odd, awkward smile that shows off his tiny fangs. He looks like he’s trying to be casual and disarming or even that most dreaded of words:friendly.“A monster,” I repeat.-----Chara draws a picture.





	Draw A Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by insertdisc5's [comic about Spinel](https://insertdisc5.tumblr.com/post/188347913040), which reminded me a lot of Chara. That comic was itself inspired by a poem by Janice Lee.

“Draw a monster!”

The goat boy - Asriel - smiles at me, an odd, awkward smile that shows off his tiny fangs. He looks like he’s trying to be casual and disarming or even that most dreaded of words: _friendly._

I stare down at the empty page in front of myself, one of a dozen spread across the floor in what’s become our shared bedroom. Asriel has twice as many drawings, already finished, mostly of himself. Just a minute ago, he was laying on his back and admiring one proudly that showed him with hair that wouldn’t look out of place in a number of Japanese boy bands.

He’d gotten curious about why _I _hadn’t drawn anything. I’d hoped he leave me alone if I simply said that I didn’t have any ideas, but of course, he had one prepared for me - even if it was just transparently an attempt to get another drawing of himself. He _was_ kind of vain.

“A monster,” I repeat.

“Y-yeah!” stammers Asriel.

“Hmm.”

I take a pencil and start to sketch. I do it almost automatically, without really thinking about what I’m doing.

“A monster,” I say, drawing the circle for its head, then eyes that are just black rectangles. No, that’s not enough. I make the eyes like chasms torn out of half its face. The mouth, too, I make a chasm. Then I take a dark red crayon and color the space underneath the chasm eyes and the chasm mouth the color of blood.

Asriel already looks confused.

_Good_, I think.

I give the circle hair, a messy, uneven brown bob cut. A green and yellow striped sweater. Shorts. A pink blush.

Still not good enough. I draw a knife in one of its hands, long and sharp.

Then I take the red crayon from earlier and furiously start to color in the white space. I don’t manage to color inside the lines as well as I’d like to, so some of the red leaks onto the shirt, the knife, the face. When I’m done, the background is almost eyesearing, but I think I prefer it that way.

“A monster,” I repeat, staring up into Asriel’s eyes.

Asriel swallows. He looks more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen him, as if I’ve done something horrible but he doesn’t have the guts to tell me so. His eyes glance back and forth between me and a nearby wall.

“Why... why is it a monster?” he says.

I tilt my head. “What?”

“Why is it a monster?” he repeats, more seriously.

I look down at the drawing, expecting the answer to be immediately obvious. It is, after all, certainly a monster. A demon - cruel, repulsive, and sadistic. Persecuted, hated, unloved. Fallen from grace, undeserving of forgiveness.

When I look at it, though, I suddenly feel... less confident in my assessment.

Asriel and his family are monsters. They resemble Baphomet, depicted as a goat-headed man, commonly seen as synonymous with the Devil. But it is hard to look at the boy in front of me and see the evil that I see in so many so-called non-monsters.

“You know what I think?” Asriel says quietly.

I say nothing.

“It’s not a monster. I... I mean, not that kind. It’s a _protector. _A guardian angel._”_

“It’s a demon,” I say, half-heartedly. “It can’t be an angel _and _a demon.”

“So what?”

“So...” I bury my face deeper in my arms. I have no further response.

Asriel gets up from where he’s seated and stretches before walking over to me, stepping carefully over my drawing. He extends his paw out towards me.

I take it, hesitantly, and he lifts me to my feet.

“Let’s go to the garden,” he says. “Let’s play a game.”

I nod and follow him.

But I take one last look at the drawing on the floor and Asriel’s words cross my mind once more.

_Why is it a monster?_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my friends Ivy and Willow for giving me feedback on this!


End file.
